The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has advanced two major strands of its reporting simplification agenda, setting out a proposed integrated reporting framework for investment funds while opening the next phase of work on streamlining transaction reporting across Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR), European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) and Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR). The move forms part of ESMA’s Simplification and Burden Reduction initiative and signals a shift from isolated reporting fixes towards a broader supervisory data architecture built around harmonisation, data reuse and cross-authority sharing.
Funds Reporting
For fund reporting, ESMA’s final report proposes a single, modular and dynamic reporting template, supported by a common regulatory data dictionary, aligned data semantics, centralised validation, data sharing and common analytics. The model is intended to reduce duplication across Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD), Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS), national supervisory and statistical reporting frameworks, while preserving proportionality across fund sizes, strategies and risk profiles.The proposed operating model would keep data collection at national level but organise validation, storage and analytics through a centralised EU data hub. ESMA says this should support a “report once, use many times” approach, enabling supervisors and other authorities to access and reuse data rather than requesting similar information through separate channels.
ESMA’s report also makes clear that integration beyond AIFMD and UCITS will be more complex, given the overlaps, data gaps and semantic divergences it identifies across EU-level supervisory reporting, statistical reporting and national reporting regimes.
Transaction Reporting
In transaction reporting, ESMA’s interim report summarises 108 responses to its 2025 call for evidence on simplifying financial transaction reporting. Respondents identified overlapping and inconsistent requirements, frequent and unsynchronised regulatory change, fragmented reporting channels and dual reporting as major drivers of cost and operational complexity across MiFIR, EMIR and SFTR.ESMA has not yet made policy recommendations and will conduct further cost-benefit analysis before finalising its position. The approaches under review include instrument-based simplification, dual-side simplification and, over the longer term, a ‘report once’ framework across EMIR, MiFIR and SFTR.
Operational Impact
For reporting teams, the message is that simplification is unlikely to mean lighter data-governance expectations. ESMA is seeking fewer duplicative submissions, but higher consistency through stronger semantics, standard identifiers, common validation and improved supervisory usability.
Firms may need to review reporting architectures, data dictionaries, control frameworks and reconciliation processes so they can support more integrated EU reporting models as the technical standards and transaction-reporting recommendations develop.
ESMA plans to present Regulatory Technical Standards (RTS) and Implementing Technical Standards (ITS) for the revised AIFMD and UCITS reporting framework next year, with implementation introduced in phases. The first phase would integrate AIFMD and UCITS reporting, before a later expansion to other reporting obligations. On transaction reporting, ESMA will hold an open hearing on 28 May 2026 and expects to publish final recommendations by mid-year.
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